LoneWolf

Characters like that are designed to fight large teams of experienced heroes. These types of villains are not supposed to be used against starting characters. You don’t put DR. Destroyer against a group of 4 standard characters; you put him against a group of 6+ very high powered characters. The guidelines for in 6 edition books for very high powered characters suggest stats in the 20-80 range, DC of 12-20 and defenses in the 35-50 with 25-40 being resistant. The 30d6 blast is not likely to one shot a character with a 50+ Con and 50 DEF.

All characters have some leaping unless they sell it back. The standard character has a 4m running leap. My question was not can they clear a 1m gap, they can do twice that with a standing leap. My question was can a character with 40m of running clear a 40m gap without buying up their leap?

@Grailknight That is more reasonable, but I would also limit the velocity to a single turn. So the character running at 12m would continue forward for 12 before it gravity took over and his forward velocity is canceled. I don’t have a problem with a character getting small bonus, but anything substantial should be paid for. @Christopher R Taylor are you also factoring in the gravity? Leaping upward is halved so the velocity from the swimming should also be halved for this. If that is the case the ¼ rule would work out to about 5M not 10. While swimming is not subject to gravity Jumping and flight are, and you only travel ½ the distance upward. That also seems reasonable. I would still encourage a water-based character to add usable as a second move to their swimming. It is dirt cheap and is something that will help the character getting to target out of the water.

Thanks

@Christopher R Taylor my suggestion was to use those same rules for swimming. So the character with 40m of swimming would be able to use their full upward leap to clear the water. Anything more should be paid for somehow. Either the character can purchase extra leaping or buy swimming with the advantage usable as a second move. UASM is much cheaper so gives the character a substantial discount. @Grailknight So, you would allow the average man to leap 12m without buying any extra leaping? That goes considerably more than cinematics. The world record for a running broad jump is 8.95m. This type of things also means there is no reason to buy leaping. Simply by up your other movement and get it for free.

The way this works is the character can carry on a conversation with someone who is dead. The dead character can lie to him if they want to. The character will need to use skills like conversation and persuasion to get any information. Why would indirect be needed in addition to transdimensional?

Maybe I was not clear enough. Does the velocity of running on the ground allow you to make a longer horizontal jump? Let’s say I am on a building and there is another building 20m away. The character has 40m of running and no bought up leaping. The character accelerates to his full 40m running and attempts to jump to the next building. Is he able to jump 20m when his running long jump is only 4M? All movement in this case is horizontal so the fact that running does not allow you to mover vertically is not a factor. The characters velocity when he leaves the first roof is 40M from running. This is not some Ninja Warrior wall running or other strange power this is straight running. The way I have always understood the rules the character would be able to leap 4M maybe more if he pushes and fall to the ground.

I am looking to build a necromancer and want to create the ability to speak with dead. My first though was to use clairvoyance but that does not really work that well. The other way I am considering building it is to use transdimensional telepathy. I only want to be able to talk with the dead person so I probably only need to get surface thoughts. The communication only limitation looks like it would also fit this. I have bought a detect soul ability that has the perceive in a single dimension adder to allow me to see dead souls. What do you think of using telepathy to speak with the dead.

My question on running was about horizontal leaps. The example I gave was jumping the gap between two buildings. The character trying to jump to the next building is not changing directions. If you give the full movement that means the normal person can perform a 12m long running long jump. The current world record for running long jump is 8.95m. The rules already kind of give a character running a boost for leaping from running. The distance is not halved for a running jump. If I was writing up a water-based character, I would not have a problem paying 4 points to get a 20m dolphin jump. That is actually a pretty cool power and would be fairly useful.

Are you doing the same for running?

If I run off a cliff, I have momentum does that mean I get to use my running to leap across a gap between buildings without paying for extra leap? How far can a character with 40m running without any increased leaping jump? The way I have always done it is that they can leap 4m long and 2m up. If that is the case, why is swimming any different. Normally a character's leaping is cut in half unless they have some velocity. The velocity of the swimming allows the character to use his full upward leap instead of having it halved. If the character wants anything more, they should pay for it. If the special effect of the characters swimming is a jet pack, I can easily see it working on land. If the special effect does support it working on land, then it does not. Buying usable as a second move is a lot cheaper than buying extra leaping. +36m swimming normally cost 18 points, adding the advantage usable as a second move (and including that on the base swimming) cost 22 points. The cost difference is only 4 points. As a GM I would have no problem allowing a character to purchase this instead of extra leaping to jump out of the water. If the character does not want to spend the 4 points, then they should simply get their running leap upward. If they spend the 4 points, they get a 40m long 20m high leap out of the water. Is charging 4 points for a 20m upward jump that outrageous?

When you exit the water you are using leaping not swimming. So the character would use that to see how far they go out of the water. It would be considered a running leap, but that is about all. If the character wants to be able to leap higher than that they should buy it as leap or put usable as a second move on the swimming. UASM is considerably cheaper than purchasing extra leap by itself.

Unless they bought usable as a second mode of movement (leap) they would not go up any distance. Usable as a second mode of movement is only a +1/4 advantage and swimming is dirt cheap. It would only cost an extra 5 points to add that to 40m of swimming. If you want to do a dolphin leap you need to purchase that ability.

I have to agree with Ninja-Bear on this just figure out how much STR it would take to break a tree and use that. If this is a beast using brute STR you don’t have to worry about trying to replant or otherwise keep the tree alive. More than likely the tree is going to break near the roots when someone tries to pull it up. There will be some root structure with the tree, but the majority will still be in the ground.

What exactly is uprooting trees and what is it doing with them? Depending on what you want to do you might not even need to worry about the STR needed to uproot the tree. If this is some mythical creature that can use trees as weapons you could use trees as a inaccessible focus for the attack power. This is also the Hero System discussion forum. Assuming the question is for a Champions game is not a given unless specified. This could just as easily be a Fantasy Hero game and be about a giant instead of a superhero.

Most trees will probably break instead of being uprooted and knocked over. The root system of most trees usually goes fairly deep and spread out. Unless the tree is planted in some sort of soft soil or is soaked through so it is mostly mud the trunk will break long before the tree fall. Most of the time when a tree is knocked over is during a long storm or where the roots are fairly shallow. Young trees are easier to knock over because the root system has not had a chance to develop. Look to see how much damage it would take to break the tree.

Does a character that is dead take BODY from attacks? The rules state that a character is dead when he reaches negative BODY equal to his starting BODY score. But does the character still take BODY after they reach this point. The reason I am asking is because of the resurrection add on for regeneration. Let say a character has 15 BODY and has 1 BODY regeneration per day with resurrection. The way the regeneration works is that the character gains 1 BODY per day. If the charter was hit with an attack that did 35 BODY or takes enough damage in attack to reduce him to -20 BODY. The Character dies at -15 BODY, but for regeneration purpose is he at -15 or -20? As the GM I have defined the resurrection as having the same rate as his normal regeneration. So the character heals 1 BODY per day. How long would it take for the character to come back from the dead? Also does further damage delay his return?

I could see using Deadly Blow for this. I would consider objects only a very limited circumstance. While objects are fairly common the need to attack them is not that great. At 12 points per die, it is somewhat expensive, but then again you probably only need one die. The character can still use martial arts maneuvers, skill levels and even deadly blow with this. This would probably not be something seen on a beginning character. They have enough stuff to purchase that affording this is hard to justify.

Is the power through some sort of focus or is it an innate ability of the character? If it is through a focus it sounds like a communication device which was why I recommended the systems operation roll. Mainly this was a way to save a decent number of points. If it is an innate power than requires skill roll may not fit. I am not sure tracking is needed or appropriate. Tracking is more for following something that moves after it is no longer there. I don’t see how this would work with a cell phone. They do not leave a trail of energy behind. Tracking would allow you to see where a cell phone had traveled. For example, if the target moved away from his location and then came back you would be able to see where he had been. Targeting should be enough to see it while it moves. I would avoid mind scan because all you will be able to do with it would be to find the cell phone. Mind Scan does not give the ability to understand the transmission. Telepathy is not a perfect fit but could be used to detect the “current thought”. You are right about it not being a good fit, but it is probably the closest thing if you go the mind scan route. The only other thing I could think of would be clairsentience for the radio group, but that means you still need a way to pick up the transmissions. Doing it with mind scan seems like really bad way to do it.

What does the power actually allow you to do? Mind Scan would allow you to find the cell phone but will not allow you to do anything else. You would not be able to listen in on the conversation, or even tell if it was sending or receiving information. To do that you would require other mental power like telepathy vs machine minds. HRRH will allow you to do a lot of those things but requires some extra modifiers. You seem to have most of what is needed already listed in this post. I would probably take the requires a system operation roll on this power to reduce the cost.

@Christopher R Taylor keep in mind that to achieve that they are putting everything into damage. Chances are their OCV and DCV are going to be pretty low. A starting character is not going to be able to achieve this but one with a decent amount of XP and good loot can. I have seen a few characters able to achieve this in games that had been running for a while. Sometimes the character who can do this is an NPC that the players are going up against. @Ninja-Bear. I may have come off a little harsh, but my main point is that you don’t need to use gimmicks to achieve what the player wants. It also depends on what exactly the player wants the ability to be able to do. If the ability is just about cutting down trees and will not be used in combat vs other creatures, I have no objection to it always working. For that type of power, I would simply purchase a few extra dice of killing attack and apply the standard effect on those dice, and by special effect allow it to affect the normal damage of the sword. On the other hand, if it is something they are going to use in an actual fight I think having a set damage would make the game less fun. Part of the fun of the game is the uncertainty. The most memorable events in the game are usually when you manage to do something risky. The time you managed to roll max damage on the boss is likely or minimum on a minion is likely to be remembered for years. Allow the power to always work means neither of those happen. I have no problem with super stealth or climbing. Most of the time when I am building those, I put the limitation requires a roll, with the roll being the appropriate skill. The limitation will in most cases pay for the cost of the skill even if you have to buy it up. Requires skill roll reduces the cost of clinging by 3 points which cover purchasing climbing. Chances are any character buy super climbing has a good DEX so that usually means they start off with a better than 11 or less. The clinging does impose a -1 on the roll, but that is the only penalty the character has to worry about. What would normally be a -5 on the climbing roll is still only or impossible is -1. Higher point powers like invisibility save even more points from taking requires a skill roll.

Why should this be completely reliable? Does the character always cut through trees and people with each blow? I have not watched the show so cannot say, but I don’t see something like this as being 100% reliable. The probability of rolling less than 15 on 5d6 is about 22%, on 6d6 that drop to about 6%. This ability is supposed to represent a character so skilled they can cut down their foes with ease. That should not be something that is automatic. The character should have a chance to miss and also have a chance that they do not instantly kill their opponent. As a GM I would veto any power that killed an opponent with no chance of failure.

The way I would build it would be to give her an offensive strike and add 2 HTH DC to the marital art. Also take weapon mastery and 6 or more skill levels. The offensive strike and weapon mastery will add 9 DC to the sword and the skill levels bring that up to 12 DC. That adds 4d6 Killing damage to the sword. A Katana should be doing at least 1 1/2d6 damage base. A character like this probably has a magic or extraordinary weapon so is probably doing 2d6 damage. That puts the damage to 6d6 killing damage. You don’t need to use Aid or drain or any other strange abilities. The raw damage is going to mean on the average this character is hewing through a lot of things.

Trees don’t have that much resistant DEF so a high enough attack will probably do the job. DEF 5 is not that hard to overcome with a high dice attack. A character able to cut through trees probably has martial arts, weapon master and skill levels to boost the damage. Most of the melee focused Fantasy Hero charters I have seen can usually get around 5d6 damage with a decent weapon. They usually have to put everything to damage to do so. Considering a tree is going to be DCV 0 that should not be a problem. For cutting people in half a critical hit on a high dice attack can probably kill a lot of characters outright. When that happens, it could easily be narrated as cutting the target in half.

You are probably using the rules for multiform from 4th edition or earlier. In 5th edition only one form pays for the multiform.